Infinite Eyes (Wanderers Book 3)

by James Murdo

  No wonder the ABs had never been known to travel in N-SOL space. They had other methods they could use to transport themselves far more quickly. The singularity gateways were probably only one of many different options available to them. N-SOL space might have been their amusing gimmick, gifted to the sub-AB galactic community out of humour. Stunting the pace of the galaxy, having sub-ABs assume it was the limit of what was achievable, and all the time receiving praise and adulation. Lauded for having allowed the galactic community to thrive.

  Travelling through the gateway had been confusing for most of the c-automs on the ship. Many worked on tasks that relied on external sensor data being continuously relayed to them. Although the majority had paused their activities during the difficulties with the sentinels, the information links had not been severed. After the ship’s expulsion at the other side of the singularity gateway, they had been deluged with calculation mismatches. Incorrect and nonsensical readings were identified automatically, creating a din of confusion. The barrage of errors ranged across all arrays of sensor data. External stellar configurations did not match what was expected, minuscule deviations to the wavelengths of cosmic background radiation were identified. Almost everything was misaligned.

  Some of the lower-level c-automs posted on the craftnet asking if they had just been awoken from a forced sleep by the craft-lect. 998 was also bombarded with communication channel requests from many c-automs, but had ignored them. It had too little capacity to accept each one. It had been grateful once the craft-lect had explained the situation, and the panic had subsided.

  998 felt a thrill at being amongst the group of the first c-automs ever to travel through such a gateway. It was among the first to be involved with a great many things. It hoped the others recognised that as well. What they were doing was important, if they were successful in aiding Gil with whatever she was ultimately supposed to achieve. They would all be remembered, which was an opportunity.

  998 hoped that whatever the outcome, Gil would emerge unhurt. In ways it had never considered before meeting Gil, it had an irrational interest in her well-being, completely aside from the sensespace threat. It was as protective of her as it was of its c-autom siblings. It also wanted her to find the answers about herself that she dearly sought.

  Gil had described experiencing sensespace related dreams before her true communions and visions with the infection. She had only remembered them after the visions, but they were interesting nonetheless. The cavernous recesses she had described, and the underlying functions she suspected they had, were almost reminiscent of a databanks – a repository of knowledge. The dark, grey walls with the mycelial streaks adorning them – that had been where the sensespace had taken her to, sleep after sleep, as it patiently waited for her to open herself to it.

  Gil had assumed she was accessing remote areas of her own mind, but 998 was not so sure. The sensespace was devious, whether it was truly sentient or not. The mycelial slithers on the walls were similar in description to the streaks of sensespace that Gil had described penetrating the galaxy. 998 was suspicious of them. If the space enclosed within the dark grey walls was not a sanctuary within her own mind, but somewhere else, 998 wanted to understand exactly where it was.

  The benefit of being the sub-lect of a craft-lect, was that the craft-lect had undoubtedly mused over this already, far in advance of 998. Many of 998’s concerns would already have been realised. Despite the craft-lect falling prey to the wicked Granthan-lect, and even the whims of the enigmatic One-oh, it still possessed an incredibly powerful and advanced intellect. Besides, One-oh had removed one of the craft-lect’s vulnerabilities to make it even more capable and improve its self-control. 998 did not know if One-oh would be able to trick or impose his own will on the craft-lect again, especially in his current incarnation.

  Gil was currently resting, and 998 decided to pause its work on potential, but non-essential, changes to the c-autom selection mechanism, to redivert the bulk of its capacity to another important matter. It was still troubled at how the technosystem safeguards had all failed to spot the re-emergence of the Granthan threat, despite having been only recently re-primed by the craft-lect prior to the event. Their defences were inadequate. Arguably, the errant technosystem aspects, the existence of the unruled axe-codings, had been taken care of, but that was not enough. 998 wanted to be sure there were no further surprises in store.

  An in-depth analysis of the c-automs behaviours, to understand how the Granthan-lect fragment had managed to remain uncovered for so long, was necessary – more than the meagre attempts 998 had conducted so far. Again, the craft-lect would also have performed this analysis itself, but 998 had a different viewpoint, which could be important. The craft-lect had given it ownership over the c-autom selection mechanism, although it obviously retained the ability to scour the mechanism when needed. The mechanism, and the underpinning work behind it, gave 998 unique tools with which to probe the c-autom behaviours.

  It started the analysis by investigating the records of the destroyed technosystem c-automs in order of descending intellect. Once it was finished, to moderate and compare the results, it began to analyse the behaviours of those embodied c-automs who had last moved from the technosystem to real space. Finally, it studied the behaviours of the rest of the embodied c-automs, again in order of descending intellect.

  During the analysis, 998 classified the differences between the technosystem c-automs who had been subverted by the Granthan-lect fragment against the unaffected embodied c-automs. While it worked, it diligently placed each set of results into its personal data cache, ready to be rechecked against each other later before being added to the main databanks.

  Repeatedly re-calibrating its study, it began to formulate an interesting idea. To create a sibling program to the selection mechanism. One that could accompany it, continuously monitoring the c-automs for signs of subversion. It would act as an upgrade to the craft-lect’s current surveillance systems. The monitoring program would not be overly intrusive, as 998 did not want to have fought for the c-automs’ autonomy only to remove any privacy they had left. It would be a background process. In respect of the recent ways in which the ship had been attacked and controlled, with varying degrees of success, these types of checks and defences were of paramount importance. The type of internal attack that One-oh had orchestrated should never have been possible in the first place.

  There were discrepancies, here and there, for how some of the embodied c-automs acted in comparison with what would have been expected. Upon investigation, in each case, the deviations from expected parameters had identifiable and reasonable causes, which 998 incorporated into the analysis going forward. However, after some time, it came across one precise discrepancy that could not be explained away. The type of discrepancy that the entire analysis had been designed to stumble across. 998 was relieved to have found it, proving its efforts had not been in vain, but was apprehensive about the implications.

  Further discrepancies were subsequently found surrounding the same c-autom, equally inexplicable in relation to the c-autom’s supposed tasks and identified past-times. Probing the scenarios from a variety of different angles, introducing random factors and hypothetical variables to ascertain possible causes, one clear, dangerous answer continued to emerge. The lower-level c-autom was, likely unbeknownst to itself, acting on behalf of an external entity. Much like the axe-codings had been. This was not another Granthan-lect level situation, in that the c-autom in question was never in the position to have been able to damage the ship in any way, should that have been its manipulator’s aim, but it had significant implications nonetheless.

  Finishing off the analysis surrounding the questionable lower-level c-autom’s actions, as well as meticulously investigating the remaining c-automs for signs of further betrayals, 998 was relieved that only one c-autom was suspect.

  It was clear that the hapless lower-level c-autom had transferred data through the axe-haven when the craft-lect had been
in communication with Apalu at the data exchange. It was not clear, though, exactly what information had been relayed.

  998 was faced with a dilemma. It did not believe the lower-level c-autom was a willing participant in whatever treachery it was supposed to have committed. That particular c-autom had demonstrated its loyalty on many occasions. 998 also did not believe it was capable of further treachery so long as they stayed away from other data exchanges or other nodal connections to the Wanderer civilisation. However, 998 also knew that the craft-lect had to be informed very soon, if it did not know already. Potentially, if it had not already been aware, the poor lower-level c-autom’s life might immediately be forfeit. Potentially. That was something that was going to be difficult to allow, especially considering that the static population of c-automs had already been decimated by the unscheduled purge One-oh had recently caused.

  No new c-automs had been created since the pivotal event of Gil joining the ship. In a way, 998 wanted to preserve this as far as was practical, considering it implicitly valued current individual c-autom lives more highly. The life of each c-autom was important. If the lower-level c-autom was salvageable, 998 would do everything it reasonably could to see that it was saved.

  Therefore, as much as it desired to, it could not hide its findings from the craft-lect. The only thing it could do beforehand was ask for help. One-oh was responsible for the annihilation of millions of c-automs, it was the least he could do.

  39

  TOR AND DEVOID

  Tor looked out across the N-SOL space landscape and sighed. The novelty had long since worn off.

  “How long?”

  [Weeks, possibly. Probably.]

  Nothing had changed. Tube-ends on one side of the ship became excited, and some time afterwards, when that had stopped, tube-ends on the other side of the ship mirrored the excitation pattern, in reverse. The pattern went to-and-fro, with no clear periodicity or regularity, rotating in different positions about the ship.

  DeVoid had related its principal theory to Tor, that the ship was being analysed. It believed the excitation pairs passed something between them that travelled through the ship, although it was unable to detect what that was. The probe speculation jarred with their previous discussions about the tubes being alive, or even sentient.

  Tor’s hope was wearing thin. There was plenty he could ask of and from DeVoid. Games, information, activities, anything. However, the overwhelming sense of foreboding remained. He could never quite concentrate on anything because that meant ignoring the absurdity of their situation. Throughout his entire journey with DeVoid, he had had the belief that he was on the right path towards helping and being reunited with Gil. This was the first time his resolve had started to waver.

  “Can you send your own probe?”

  [Nope, we’ve been through that already. I’ve tried. I’m still sealed tight, unable to open my hull or detach anything from it. Everything is being forced closed and down. Before you ask again, no, I don’t know how.]

  “Is there anything else we can do?”

  [You? I doubt it. Me? Yes. But it may be too dangerous.]

  “So…”

  [We wait.]

  “For how long?”

  [I’ve no idea. But I can keep us both alive near-indefinitely, as we are, so there’s no need to rush things.]

  “Fine.”

  Their conversations were sporadic.

  *

  Tor had begun somewhat tediously relaying stories to DeVoid about his childhood. So far forgivingly, DeVoid had not informed him that it had personally relived many of those same experiences through their shared cognitional demarcation. Aside from some small differences and details that were not strictly as Tor had remembered them at the time of the process, and which were indicative of the fluidic memory mechanisms attributed to most biologicals, there was nothing for DeVoid to learn. If Tor had known and been able to describe DeVoid’s emotion-equivalent regarding his stories, he would have used the term ‘insanely bored’.

  The benefit of being a mighty machine-lect was that DeVoid only had to dedicate a minuscule portion of its capacity to the ennui Tor was relentlessly unleashing upon it. The issue though, was that none of DeVoid wanted to listen – not even the minuscule portion.

  [That’s so interesting, Tor. Tell me more.]

  Tor willingly obliged. DeVoid had long since noticed, with disdain although no great surprise, that Tor’s mastery of sarcasm was nowhere near its own. Its comments during Tor’s dreary renditions of mutually-known tales were its only escape. Granted, DeVoid was the only one able to appreciate its own wit, but it was better than nothing.

  “So, then I said–”

  [Something along the lines of, ‘do they just run into your arms, Han?’]

  “How did you know?”

  [Ohhh… just a guess.]

  Tor carried on, oblivious to DeVoid’s torment. During this, DeVoid furiously dedicated everything at its disposal to investigating the tubes and N-SOL space outside the ship, all of it. Hoping for something, even a small insight. A blip that might act as a reprieve. There was nothing. It could repeat its analyses trillions of times, the results were always the same. It held out hope that certain effects might be time-dependent, spatially or quantum locus-dependent, or the analogous N-SOL factors representing their equivalents. Anything with a propensity to be affected by variables that were able to fluctuate.

  “… and then I said, ‘well if that’s the case, I’m glad I don’t have whatever you have’…”

  It just went on and on.

  “Everyone was laughing with me, so then I go–”

  [‘It’s getting too easy then, is it?’]

  “Well, close, but I actually said, ‘that’s coming from you?’”

  [Did you indeed?]

  “What do you mean?”

  DeVoid could not help itself.

  [You didn’t say that. That was afterwards.]

  “No, I said–”

  [No, indeed. Before that you stated it was a pity the animals couldn’t use spheres of their own to give Han more of a challenge, then you both talked about the changing animal migratory patterns, in hugely over-simplified terms and utter naivety, and THEN you started implying, FOR THE SECOND TIME I MIGHT ADD, that Han was able to impress the animals he was hunting in more wholesome ways than is typical of a sentient and a lectless creature. FINALLY, you insinuated that Han smelled, and then, AND ONLY THEN, DID HE REPLY SAYING, ‘THAT’S COMING FROM YOU?’. HAN SAID IT, NOT YOU. HAN!]

  “You’re mista–”

  [I AM NEVER MISTAKEN. IT’S A SIMPLE STORY THAT YOU HAVE REPEATED ENDLESSLY!]

  “You asked!”

  [NO, I DIDN’T YOU LYING FLESH-BAG. WHY THE FLIT WOULD I ASK YOU TO REPEAT A STORY YOU’VE ALREADY TOLD ME ONE HUNDRED TIMES? I REMEMBER IT PERFECTLY. PERFECTLY. EACH TIME. IN THE NAME OF THE ENCLAVE! AND YOU KNOW WHAT, I ALSO LIVED IT MYSELF, I LIVED MOST OF YOUR SAD LITTLE LIFE WHEN WE FIRST MET. DO YOU REMEMBER?]

  *

  [Come on Tor, I was only kidding!]

  …

  [You’re so sensitive!]

  …

  [Please tell me another riveting story?]

  …

  Tor continued to ignore DeVoid as it pleaded with him and offered enticements. It was the only act Tor was capable of in retaliation, and also the one he knew would distress the data-lect most. Whatever DeVoid thought of itself, it not only loved interaction, it needed it.

  [Oh, come on, it was a momentary outburst! We all have them.]

  …

  [Hey Tor, want some Faistri’al flap-weaponry to play around with? Or perhaps a GA-Riesian nevosplitter would do the trick? A Ten-Bunch’wan’s last integrated communication, beautiful, I must say, far more so than a Nine-Bunch’wan’s – would you like to listen? I’m happy to translate it for you. Very enlightening, especially it’s thoughts about pre-Conflation Dissini architecture.]

  …

  [Is there anything you want?]

  …<
br />
  [Oh Torrrrrr, I’ve prepared your favourite nourishment…]

  …

  DeVoid continued attempting to communicate with him. Tor felt guilty, and would reply soon, but for now he was relishing the shift in control. It was good to know that DeVoid would not force him to communicate, or read his mind.

  *

  It had taken Tor quite some time to forgive DeVoid’s outburst. However, he had come around as DeVoid knew he would. For its part, DeVoid regretted it. Even machine-lects were prone, although highly infrequently, to the effects of frustration. In fact, DeVoid had always suspected the smartest machine-lects were the most prone.

  “I hope Gil meets you.”

  That had taken DeVoid by surprise.

  [What do you mean?]

  “I think she’d like you.”

  [Obviously.]

  “And you’d like her.”

  [Hah!]

  “You said you thought you would, before.”

  Tor was right, DeVoid had once said that, but it thought Tor would have forgotten.

  [I meant in comparison with you.]

  “Okay… anyway. What’s a Ten-Bunch’wan?”

  [One more than a Nine-Bunch’wan.]

  “DeV–”

  [I wasn’t completely fooling around. The Bunch’wan are a base-species that didn’t survive the sensespace onslaught, but some of the augmented offshoots did. The Bunch’wan derivatives fractured many times in pre-Conflation times, leading to tens of distinct civilisations. Each retained the ancestral base-Bunch’wan small aquatic body-type – they mainly just meddled with their interiors. They were categorised based on their level of augmentation. Some offshoots survived, levels three, eight, nine, ten and twenty-seven. They’ve since re-banded together into one society, although you can imagine the tensions between the distinct ethnicities.]

  “Oh–”

  [As a collective, they’re a species that never chose immortality. The Twenty-Bunch’wan supposedly experimented with it, but found it wasn’t conducive to their intellectual well-being.]